The Sock Drawer - 12. The halls for lone people, and a smile

The halls for lone people, and a smile

The worms who revel in the shades

have grown thick

again

It’s shady and misty

It feels like old paper

in rain

They writhe in slime again

smell of the foul pus

that they ooze

Vomit themselves through the new old shades

imposed as labyrinth walls

as facts, unyielding and straight

slammed into the mind, a bruise

in the mind

The new familiar halls

formed by these giant planes

void of window or gate

are gradually filled with

my oily swarms.

What I thought reality

wanes

And I know there must be sound!

And I know where it is.

Digging my hands

into my chest

my fingers touch ground

below the watery kiss

of my phased skin

They grip the best

most reassuring music there is

Standing forlorn in these halls

black, forever, swarming with worms,

insanity and bleak desperation

the emptiness of a vast closed space

is eased

by the substance of my flesh,

my blood and its storms,

intelligence’s grace,

my heart’s deviation.

And my mouth, then

is pleased.